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I am taking part in Stories on the Go, an anthology featuring 101 short stories by 101 different authors. My story is a 1,000 word prequel romance featuring two of the supporting characters from A Play for the Castle.

The anthology is currently free on Amazon.com, and we are waiting for Amazon to price match to free on their other stores. The anthology is also available on Barnes & Noble, Apple, and Kobo.

Description:

This anthology aims to be a showcase of recent indie writing.

Hugh Howey launched the idea on Kboards, a forum for Kindle readers, but also the meeting place of an active community of indie writers.

The result is this anthology of 101 very short stories by 101 authors.

To make it more attractive for you, the reader, we set ourselves a limit of a thousand words. You should be able to read each story in under five minutes — on your desktop computer, laptop, or tablet at home or in the office, but also on your smartphone, on the go, while you are commuting or waiting at a coffee shop for your significant other to arrive.

We included as many genres as we could. We hope that maybe, with only five minutes of your time on the line that would otherwise be wasted anyway, you’ll be tempted to venture outside your comfort zone and try out some new genres and new authors.

The Gardener is a sweet romance set in 1950s rural England. It is available for Amazon Kindle and on Smashwords. I am currently working on a print version and will update this post when it becomes available.

Please note – there appears to be an issue with Kobo UK not listing the books, though they are on the US store. As a work-around, Kobo users in the UK can purchase an epub version via Smashwords.

Description:

Sarah Mountlow, a pretty young widow, can’t help but fall for Ben Haythorn. He is good, kind, thoughtful – everything her late husband wasn’t. Ben took her in when she had nowhere else to turn. She wishes she could help him with his own problems, but he’s reluctant to tell her what they are.

Successful market gardener Ben Haythorn accepted an exemption from active service during the war in order to care for his sick mother. He’s often called “yellow as hay Haythorn” by people in the village, but when there’s a crisis involving his family from the manor house, Ben might just have it in him to surprise everyone.

Please note – there appears to be an issue with Kobo UK not listing the books, though they are on the US store. As a work-around, Kobo users in the UK can purchase an epub version via Smashwords.

Description:

Sir James Beauleigh hasn’t seen Jenny Davenport since they were children. Arriving to take over his late uncle’s estate, he accidentally overhears Jenny complaining that her family is hoping for a match between the two of them.

When James decides to tease the Davenports by pretending to be a vain and foolish fop of a man, he doesn’t expect the act to last more than a day.

However, when Portia Perrault (a femme-fatale low on finances but not on audacity) falsely declares that James is her long-lost fiancé and threatens to use a local law to entrap him into marriage with her, the foppish pretence may be the only way for James to escape her clutches.

The trouble is, Portia doesn’t care how ridiculous he appears as long as he is rich and titled, and he is fast falling in love with Jenny, who holds him in disgust.

It will take a masked ball, a duel, and more than just a powdering of persuasion to resolve matters.

A Fop and His Fortune is a lighthearted romance set in a Regency-flavored make-believe world.

Now that my book is available in paperback, I’m running a Goodreads Giveaway, where readers in the US, UK and some areas of Europe can enter for the chance to win a copy. When I set up the giveaway, the title hadn’t yet gone live on The Book Depository – it has now been listed. So, if I run another giveaway on this title in future, then I will be able to open it up to readers in all countries. :o)

For now though, readers in qualifying countries can enter to win a copy here:

My first novel, A Play for the Castle, has finally been published! I first started this story fourteen years ago, and it’s had a long and winding route to the page, but now it’s finally out there!

It’s currently available for Amazon Kindle, and on Smashwords. It’s awaiting extended distribution to the other retailers, but in the meantime, you can buy epub versions direct from Smashwords here. A print version is in the works and will be out as soon as possible.

Arthur and his friends are noblemen disguised as traveling players. Raising an army in secret, while dodging mercenaries and cabbages alike, isn’t easy. Neither is keeping secrets from the curious young woman he happens to be falling in love with. She thinks he’s just an actor with a shady past, and if he’s to have any hope of a future, he can’t put her right. Between sword fights and scene changes, life is about to get interesting.

When I asked my husband whether he’d like a cake for his birthday, he said that he’d be happy if I made ginger cookies and stuck a candle in one of them.

I decided to give him the cookies he wanted, but to dress them up a bit for the occasion!

I used the excellent Big Soft Ginger Cookies recipe from allrecipes.com (which, if you like ginger cookies, you should definitely try!)

When I made the cookies, I made three of them into giant cookies (I patted the mixture out flat and coated it in sugar, leaving space for it to spread. As long as you flatten it, you could probably make them as large as you want – but be aware that they will tend to fold and crack when you lift them from the tray (due to the ‘soft’ part of the recipe!)

A tip for this cookie recipe – when I make the cookies, I usually give them 8-10 minutes (closer to 8 if the oven is already hot) & I gave these ones 11 due to the size of the larger cookies. In general though, they are done once you get a very slight resistance if you gently rest a finger on one of the cookies. If you cook them till they are firm then you’ll overcook them, and they will lose a lot of the moistness and softness. It might take you a couple of goes to work out how long you need to leave them in the oven for to get them the way you want them – but you won’t mind that because they are so tasty!

Anyway, once you have your giant cookies, you can turn them into a cookie cake!

I made some rum buttercream icing to layer the cookies with. I used:

3oz salted butter (room temperature)
5oz icing sugar
2 tbsp dark rum

I stirred the ingredients together with a fork, then whisked it all up with an electric whisk. I made my icing layers about 3mm to 4mm thick, and had enough icing left to do another layer if I’d wanted. I decided that three layers would be enough for this cookie cake because of the richness of the buttercream, but you could make it with as many layers as you wanted. I then topped it with some candied ginger.

You could also make mini ones with regular sized cookies & serve them as individual desserts. 🙂

I recently purchased a copy of Scrivener. I’ve previously done my writing in OpenOffice or Microsoft Word, using Microsoft OneNote when I wanted to keep track of details. However, everyone raves about Scrivener, so I figured I’d give it a go!

With that in mind, I’ve spent this weekend working my way through the interactive tutorial – and yes, I probably will read the entire user manual at some point – I’m the sort of person who always reads the instructions! I might forget how to do something – but I usually remember that it can be done. 🙂

Anyway, since I tend to save all my ideas for plots as individual documents, I was curious to see how Scrivener would cope with importing those if I were to just highlight everything in my ‘Ideas’ folder and attempt to import it. Obviously, I didn’t actually do that – I set up test files in OpenOffice and Word, one regular and one password protected for each program & imported them to a test project in Scrivener.

I should perhaps mention that I already knew that Scrivener didn’t support importing for OpenOffice documents (apparently, the work-around is to cut & paste, or I suppose you could save it as a .doc or some other supported format.) – I just wanted to see what would happen.

The results were:

General: It wouldn’t import the folder that contained the documents, I had to select all the documents within the folder individually. I mention this because, depending on how you organise your writing, you may have sub-folders for a project you’re working on in another program and need to factor that in when you come to import that particular writing project to Scrivener.

OpenOffice .ODT file: Didn’t import – but Scrivener created a document that consisted of a link to the OpenOffice file on my hard drive – clicking on the link started up OpenOffice and opened the file.

OpenOffice ODR file – Password Protected: As above, didn’t import but I got a document with a link that started up OpenOffice, prompted me for the password & opened the document once I entered it.

Microsoft Word .DOCX file: Imported as a document.

Microsoft Word .DOCX file – Password Protected: Didn’t import, created an error message and, where the document would usually go in Scrivener (represented by a sheet of paper with lines on it) – I had a blank sheet of paper with the file name as the title but no link or anything else. I was able to type into the blank document – at which point – lines appeared on the sheet of paper icon that represents it in the Scrivener Binder.

So, there you go. I just thought I’d share that in case it’s useful to anyone else who’s starting out with Scrivener. 🙂

The only child of the local village squire, Selina has always thrown herself into her studies, perhaps a little too much. She knows a lot about books but not so much about people. When she receives an invitation to the Gathering of Great Minds in Trevarde, she is desperate to attend. It’s harvest time and no one can be spared from the village to escort her on her travels. Selina sees no reason why she shouldn’t make the journey on her own.

Bill is a patient and good-natured gentleman, passing through Selina’s village on his way to Trevarde. The local innkeeper suggests him to the squire as a suitable protector to get Selina safely through the dangerous border lands. On hearing from her father that she is threatening to make the journey alone, Bill volunteers to escort her.

Willful, smart, but too sheltered to comprehend the dangers she would face traveling alone—Selina wants to shake off the man she believes her father has hired unnecessarily. Her thoughts are on the gathering and the speaker she hopes to impress. She wants to concentrate on her studies, but when she writes Bill off as a brainless fighter, it might just lead to her most important lesson yet.